


The Hoarder's Dilemma

by crossingwinter



Series: Reylo Giveaways [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bodyguard, Dragonborn - Freeform, F/M, Friends to Lovers, modern fairytale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:00:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23564185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crossingwinter/pseuds/crossingwinter
Summary: Kylo doesn’t breathe fire indoors, but god is it hard when he sees the man’s hand slip over Rey’s ass.Mine,he thinks angrily as he takes another shot of whiskey before,No, that’s the dragon blood.  She’s not part of your hoard.But that’s why the Emperor chose him to protect her.  Dragonborn, not dragon, but as fiercely protective as a lizard dragon in his humanoid form.  He doesn’t need to abduct the princess, lock her away in a mountain trove, but he would sooner die than let anything happen to her.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Reylo Giveaways [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660294
Comments: 130
Kudos: 778





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [killian_stark1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/killian_stark1/gifts).



> I did a giveaway as a celebration for officially having more than 100 Reylo fics on AO3! This is the second of those three giveaways!
> 
> I would love to thank [thesigularity](http://https://twitter.com/thesigularity) who drew some [amazing art](https://twitter.com/crossing_winter/status/1248325055857266693) for this I can't thank them enough!!

_ Once upon a time, there was a young prince who hated his father. He fled his father’s court, married for love, and they had a daughter. _

_ But the Emperor was a power hungry man, and was furious at his son’s escape. He traced the family, had his son and new daughter-in-law killed for their disobedience, and took their daughter to raise as his own. _

_ Worried that his granddaughter would flee him the way his son had, he cast a spell and gave her a guardian—a powerful beast with wings and scales that could breathe fire when angry. No one would take her away from him so long as the beast lived, nor would she be able to escape as her father had, for all know that the dragonborn suffer no absconsion from their hoard. _

_ — _

“Who’s that?” 

The man is tall, and olive skinned, with bleached blond hair. His eyes are on Rey, and Kylo rolls his eyes. 

“I wouldn’t go there if I were you,” he says calmly even as the bartender laughs and says, “That? That’s the princess.”

“Princess, eh?” the man says, pulling off his sunglasses. Why he is wearing sunglasses inside, at night, Kylo has no fucking clue. The man’s eyes are hungry as he looks at her. 

“Listen, man, she’ll kick your ass if you try to touch her. I’d stay away,” Kylo says. He learned a long time ago that Rey preferred to kick fuckboys’ asses herself.  _ I’m not a prize,  _ she’d snarled at one three weeks ago.

“What, you afraid of a little princess?” the man asks. “Big scary dragonborn, afraid of a girl?”

Kylo takes a sip of his whiskey. His wings are tucked against his back, and he won’t breathe fire inside. He’s learned from his mistakes and tries not to do that anymore. He’s had to pay out far too many property damage suits, and that’s before Rey even starts in on him. The stranger winks at him, puts his shot glass down on the bar and goes over to where Rey is dancing.

Kylo doesn’t breathe fire indoors, but god is it hard when he sees the man’s hand slip over Rey’s ass.  _ Mine, _ he thinks angrily as he takes another shot of whiskey before,  _ No, that’s the dragon blood. She’s not part of your hoard. _

But that’s why the Emperor chose him to protect her. Dragonborn, not dragon, but as fiercely protective as a lizard dragon in his humanoid form. He doesn’t need to abduct the princess, lock her away in a mountain trove, but he would sooner die than let anything happen to her.

Luckily, he has learned he doesn’t have to worry about it. Rey, like clockwork, turns around and without even bothering to appraise the man who grabbed her ass without asking, socks him in the face.

He stumbles back, grabbing his nose which is now gushing blood and Kylo smiles into his whiskey. It pleases him, seeing how strongly she fights back. He knows it’s not for him, of course, but it feels that way to his instincts, and it makes the beginnings of the fire burning in the depths of his throat start to flicker and die. 

The man does not return to the bar. He goes to the bathroom to tend to his bloody nose and Kylo picks his sunglasses up and twirls them by the stem in his hand as he watches Rey stomp towards him. 

“I can’t bloody dance without men grabbing me,” she storms. How he loves her storms, the way her face is electrified with indignation, with outrage. “Let’s go.” 

Kylo smiles and gets off his barstool. This could have gone a lot worse. There have definitely been times when he’s dragged Rey out of a bar to keep her from getting into a worse fight. He flares his wings out to curl around her like a shield as he slides the sunglasses on her nose. “A trophy,” he tells her.

“Who wears sunglasses in the dark?” she asks. But she doesn’t take them off. They suit her, but he doesn’t say as much. She doesn’t like compliments when she’s angry. Instead he turns towards the door of the bar and leads her out into the night.

—

When Kylo was younger, still a boy of a dragonborn, and Rey had been even younger, he’d been able to carry her and fly at the same time for hours. He can still carry her and fly now, but it’s a bit of a different experience.

“Shit my skirt got untucked,” Rey says. She likes to tuck the back of her skirt between her legs when they fly. No matter how many times Kylo has told her that this high up, no one can see between her legs, it’s something she fixates on, so he sighs and begins the descent. He’ll land on a rooftop below as carefully as he can. 

“You really should wear pants if you’re worried about it.”

“I hate wearing pants when I go dancing,” she replies right on schedule—a conversation they’ve had at least four times in the past month. It’s funny, because convincing her to wear skirts at almost any other time is a nightmare. Even for court functions her grandfather summons her to, she’ll just refuse to wear the gowns. He doesn’t ask why dancing is different. He gets the impression he won’t get the real answer. If there’s one thing he’s learned about Rey over the years, it’s that sometimes she tells herself that the words coming out of her mouth are the truth when they’re not always.

He lands and places her gently on the rooftop. She does a  _ very _ unladylike thing, tugging her skirt up through her legs and tucking it into the waistline, almost like an oversized diaper, then looks at him again, prepared. He sighs and bends down, tucking one arm under her legs and the other holding her back, cradling her to his chest. Then he crouches down and takes off again and Rey curls into him.  _ You’re so warm, _ she has told him many times—usually when she is drunker than she is now. 

_ That’s the fire, _ he replies every time. 

When she’s drunker than she is now, she’ll nuzzle her face against his heart, where the flame burns hottest. It’s comforting to her, somehow. Probably because she knows he’ll keep her safe.

—

Ben doesn’t sleep much. Dragons never sleep, they just rest, but he’s not a full dragon, so he gets by with only a few hours, usually in the darkest hours of the night when he can be sure that Rey is tucked away, asleep in her bed one floor up above him. He is a light sleeper, and if Rey so much as gets up for a drink of water, he can hear her moving around upstairs. Anyone who was trying to hurt her—he’d hear them and be able to put a stop to it as quick as it takes the flames to fill his mouth.

Usually his dreams are of her, smiling in the sunshine. Sometimes, his dreams have her smiling not at that daytime star but at him. She’s tucking her hair behind her ear, and holding out her hand and he shouldn’t want her like this—he’s protecting her but it’s like when she nuzzles into his chest, something feels right, like he’s as much hers as she is his.

It always takes him a moment to resettle after those dreams. They are just dreams. Rey isn’t going to want him, and likely she’ll never get what she wants because her grandfather will choose who she marries. There’ll be no runaway romance like her traitor father in the wake of the Emperor’s assassination attempt. She has a dragonborn bodyguard to keep assholes away from her, to keep people who aren’t worthy of her attention or love away from her. (He tries not to let himself think about what will happen when, invariably, she does marry. It will be someone unworthy because no one is worthy of Rey, and a dragon doesn’t let go of his hoard lightly. But he will cross that agony when he gets there. For now, he is more than content to keep people away from her.)

A knock at the outer door to the tower arrives with the dawn. A courier from the Emperor, who could just as easily have sent a text message as a human, but he was old school like that, Kylo supposes. 

_ I will see her for breakfast,  _ which is how Kylo climbs the stairs to the top of the tower and does his best to wake Rey as gently as possible.

If there is one thing that’s true, it’s that that smiling in the sunshine Rey of his dreams is just a dream. Rey hates waking. If he doesn’t sleep much, she doesn’t sleep well, and is as much a monster as he is when roused before she wants to be out of bed. 

“Your grandfather wants to see you for breakfast. You should shower.”

“I hate you.”

“You don’t.”

“Don’t tell me what I think.” She throws a pillow at him unsuccessfully. She’s not sitting up enough for it to have any force behind it, and indeed, it doesn’t make it off her bed. 

“I’d shower if I were you.”

She growls and he retreats. The shower will calm her down. It always does. 

She is clean, calm, and coiffed when he next sees her, wearing a nice set of slacks and a blouse as she prepares to leave the tower, cross the courtyard and the moat filled with spikes into the enchanted forest that the Emperor resides in. She looks nervous, but that doesn’t surprise him. The only thing that ever makes Rey nervous is the grandfather she isn’t sure loves her.

And the fact that he is undead and can’t detach from that tree he’s in doesn’t make matters easier.

“It’s ok,” Kylo tells her as he walks with her across the courtyard, his wings flared out to keep the sun off her. She freckles so easily and while he thinks the freckles are cute, the way they scatter on her nose, one casual comment six years ago from her grandfather meant she tried not to be in the sun enough to freckle. (One more way that dream Rey, the one that smiles and takes his hand, is just a dream. She has freckles on her nose.)

She gives him a smile. He knows her too well for her to need to put on a brave face right now. Small mercies.

The enchanted wood is like stepping into evening. The branches and leaves overhead are thick and weave together to block out almost every slip of sunlight. Birds make no sound, though crickets sing in the darkness. And together, he and Rey tread the well-worn path into the heart of the wood.

The Emperor has been dead for years. He cannot leave the tree that is hooked into his innards, that curls through his flesh and around his spine. His skin is pale from lack of sun, and his eyes are yellow with magic. 

Kylo hangs back when they enter the clearing and Rey proceeds alone. There is a table with some fresh fruit on it in front of him. Rey sits at the table and takes a bite of the fruit.

“No greeting for your grandfather?” the Emperor asks.

“Good morning, grandfather,” Rey replies obediently. “How are you today?”

He huffs. “The Resistance grows ever stronger. But we will crush them.”

Rey eats her apple. This was the same way he had started their last breakfast together as well. 

“What inroads have you made?” Rey asks.

From her tone, she expects there to be no updates from the last time her grandfather fixated. But she looks up and freezes when he says, “They have designs upon your life.” 

And rage erupts in Kylo’s chest.  _ They won’t touch her. No one will touch her. I’ll burn them all if they try. _ He can feel the heat in his heart, threatening to burst out of his throat but no—no he is in a wooded area. He would burn her too if he loses control. So he takes several steadying breaths that do little to fill the silence in the clearing. 

“There’s no need to be afraid,” the emperor says after the silence stretches on.

“I’m not afraid,” Rey replies at once because of course she’s not. She never admits to her fear, gives in to her fear—which means she never gives in to her grandfather.

“Good,” the emperor replies. “Then you won’t mind my using you as bait.” And there it is again, that horrible, hounding heat, and every instinct to drag her away from the table, curl her in the circle of his wings, hide her from anyone who would bring her danger. 

“What sort of bait?” Rey asks. 

“Oh, your usual,” the emperor sniffs. “Dance the night away as you so choose. As frequently as you should like. Behave no differently than you do now. They will come for you and we will be ready.”

“Will Kylo be with me?” Rey asks. A tinge of fear, a hint of worry.  _ I’ll keep you safe. _

“Naturally,” her grandfather tells her and his gaze, for the first time since they had arrived in the clearing, turns to Kylo. “He has his role to play.”

A weight lifts. Kylo feels like he can breathe again. He bows. “They won’t touch her, your majesty.”

“And if they do, it will be your head.”

But Kylo’s not afraid of them.

He’s known from the first moment she’d been placed in his arms, tiny and afraid and crying for her parents that he would die before he let anything happen to her.

—

“I don’t get it,” Rey slurs at him the next time they are out clubbing. She has danced, she has even been allowed to guest-DJ much to the excitement of the gathered club attendees. Kylo has kept no fewer than eight unworthy men away from her and now she’s leaning her head against his shoulder as she tries to decide if it’s time to go home. (It is, but he always lets her decide.)

“What don’t you get?” he asks her. 

“You would think that if he wanted to defeat the Resistance, he would have made some plan for his heir that was more than just be the bait in my trap, wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t think he intends to die again,” Kylo points out. The tree, after all, will live a long time, and will give life to him until it doesn’t. 

“I could be useful, though,” she says and she pokes him in the chest. “I could…”

“Do you want to be in more danger than you are?” Kylo asks.

“No, but...I don’t know. I could be my own person. He could trust me to be my own person, instead of an extension of him.”  _ My hoard. _

He swallows.

“He could,” he says slowly. 

“He’s not even trying to keep me safe. You would keep me safe.”

“I would.” His voice is quiet. “I will.”

“Let’s go home.”

And he takes her, holding her to his chest.  _ My hoard.  _ But no, no she is not an extension of him. She’s her own person. Her own person who he’d burn the world for if anything happened to her. 

But she would hate to be thought of as his hoard. Even if she likes that he keeps her safe. 

It’s like a war in his very being—the human and the dragon. The human that knows the needs of autonomy, the dragon that only knows duty, and law, and possession.

Duty when she is asleep in his arms and he carries her up to her bed.

Law when he doesn’t look at her as he does his best to get her undressed, knowing how much she hates waking up in her sweat stained gladrags, especially when hungover, which she will be tomorrow.

Possession when he closes the door behind him to go downstairs, knowing that she is safe again for tonight, that no one—not even her grandfather—will be able to touch her.

—

“So, she your bird?” asks a man—tall, dark, handsome. The sort of guy who Rey probably would dance with if he weren’t over here calling her a bird to her dragonborn bodyguard. (Rey finds the incessant use of animal pet names dehumanizing. Not that Kylo has ever used them with her.)

_ Not mine. _

“No,” he says.

“But you came in with her.”

“Yes.”

“So you like…” he gives Kylo a once over, trying, “her brother or something?”

“Do I fucking look like her brother?” Kylo asks, letting some smoke out of his nostrils.

“I don’t know,” the man says defensively. Then, after a pause. “What’s she like?”

_ Not yours. _

_ Bait. _

He wants to punch a wall.

Instead, he says, “Stubborn, hotheaded, fierce.” 

The man frowns. Rey certainly doesn’t look like that now, swaying the way she is on the dance floor with a few girls she’d found. She looks happy, and carefree—more like that sunshine Rey from his dreams.  _ She’s both _ , he thinks. Happy and angry, stubborn and forgiving, hotheaded and filled with cold control. 

“Right,” the man says at last, and he disappears, leaving Kylo alone. He doesn’t see him go near Rey.  _ Weak,  _ he thinks.  _ Unworthy. _

Two traits that shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near her.

He wonders what would happen if he came across someone who was worthy of her. He wonders if such a man exists. Who can love her rough and her soft all at once? 

She dances until late. These girls she’s found to dance with—they get on like a house on fire because when Rey brings them over to the bar, she introduces them to him. “This is Rose and Jannah!” she says delightedly. “And this is Kylo. He’s my guard.”

Kylo nods to them both, and watches as Jannah takes a phone out of her pocket to take a selfie. “No,” he says.

“What?”

“No pictures.”

“I won’t post anywhere,” Jannah protests.

“No. Pictures.” And he lets a little heat out of his mouth. Jannah takes a step back and Rey glares at him.

“Be nice,” she snaps.

“I’m trying to keep you safe.”

“I don’t see how a selfie is going to stop that,” Rey says and she turns to Jannah’s phone and smiles at it. 

_ If other people see you, then they’ll want you and they’ll come for you. _

But no. She’s not his. 

God this is hard.

_ What does it matter as long as she is safe? _

Except the whole point is she’s not supposed to be safe. She’s supposed to be bait. 

_ Her grandfather doesn’t care about her. Not the way I do. My loyalty should be to her, not him. _

“You ok?” Rey asks him. Rose and Jannah are taking more pictures but Rey is staring at him.

“Yes.” He tries to sound firm, but really just sounds a bit breathy.

“It’ll be ok,” Rey says quietly. “Trust me.”

And he does.

But he also doesn’t. 

He does because how couldn’t he trust Rey? Smart, stubborn, wise, determined Rey. But he doesn’t because she’s not the one who can breathe fire or fly. 

She and Rose and Jannah take to the dance floor again and Kylo sits there feeling winded. 

Yes, and no. His, and not. Safe, and in peril. Dragon, and man.

Things were easier before she’d started making him question everything. When she’d been small and he’d known what her safety meant, as opposed to now where he isn’t sure if her grandfather would sacrifice her safety if it meant his own. 

He loses track of time, but not of Rey, dancing the night away. She gets drunker and drunker and eventually stumbles back to him the way she always does and he wings her off into the night.

_ Safe, mine, _ he lets himself think as he flies. 

When he tucks her away in bed and closes the door behind her, though, he reminds himself:  _ not a possession. _

_ A person. _

_ — _

“They were rebels?” Kylo asks her the next morning.

“Definitely,” Rey tells him. She is not his sunshine Rey, she is hungover as fuck, and wearing the sunglasses she’d taken from that one asshole she’d decked because Ben had insisted on opening the curtains for breakfast.

“You’re sure?”

“Who the fuck pretends not to know who I am? And then tells me I look very different in person?” Rey asks grumpily as she shoves eggs in her mouth. “Never heard that before. And they really wanted those pics of me.”

“People want pics of you all the time,” Kylo points out.

“Yes, but they don’t usually pretend not to know who I am first. So I’d say,” she waves her fork through the air, “that I’m doing a great job as bait.”

“Sounds like it,” Kylo says.

Rey frowns at him. Or maybe she’s just hungover and her face is going back to normal. It certainly isn’t smiling at him though. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Kylo says.

“You’re being very clipped with me.”

“I’m usually pretty clipped.”

“True, but it’s different this time.” Something trembles in her voice and Kylo’s heart lurches. He only hears that trembling when she’s about to cry.

“I’m not angry with you,” he tells her at once. 

“Then what is it?”

“I’m angry with  _ this _ ,” he says, waving his hand. “Actively putting you in danger.”

She looks at him for a long while and he wishes he could see her eyes. He should have decked that guy in the bar, because then, at least, he’d have broken the sunglasses. Even if they do look really good on her. Because they do look really good on her.

“That’s sweet of you,” she tells him quietly and gives him a half smile.

“Why are you upset?” he growls.

“Because sometimes I get the feeling that you’re the only person in the whole world who cares about me. And it was fun pretending that Jannah and Rose did last night, but I know they don’t. It’s all just pretend, really. That I’m loveable.”

“You’re very loveable.”

The sad smile doesn’t go away.

_ She’s upset. She’s upset.  _

_ Do something. _

He wishes he weren’t on the other side of the table because the impulse to pull her into his arms is very strong. Although maybe that’s a good thing.

It’s like she knew what he was thinking because she sighs. “I suppose it doesn’t matter. I’ll end up with whoever my grandfather wants me to end up with. My father married for love and look what happened to him. Maybe it’s better not to want love at all.”

“Except that to pretend that will make you more miserable,” he tells her. “You’re sad just trying to think about it. Accepting it won’t make you happy.”

“What choice do I have?” and she gives him the saddest smile of all. “I don’t think my happiness is ever part of the plan.”

_ Like your safety. _

Kylo feels fire beginning to crackle in his heart as he looks at her, taking another bite of eggs.

“At least I’ll always have you,” she says at last.

“Always,” he vows. “Always.”


	2. Chapter 2

He shouldn’t have said always, because that night, when he closes his eyes and does manage to get half a wink of sleep, everything changes.

She’s still his sunshine Rey, smiling, but she’s also naked and wearing those sunglasses and whispering things like, “You make me happy, Ben,” and, “This feels amazing, you feel amazing.”

When he wakes, he lies there for a full ten minutes, trying to get his dick to calm down, but it remains firmly erect at the apex of his thighs and the only thing he can really think to do after ten minutes is to touch it.

He hates himself more than a little as he remembers her body in his dream. Her breasts—well, he’s never seen her nipples before, so his brain supplied a color and a size—her waist, her legs, her ass, all of her is something his mind and body delight in as he strokes himself and strokes himself and strokes himself.

_ Your happiness matters to me. _

_ I’d burn the world to make you happy. _

He singes the pillows when he comes, his heart racing fire up his throat and through his veins.

This has to stop.

How can he make this stop?

Dreams are one thing but touching himself and imagining her body writhing against his, imagining her lips and breath and the feeling of her fingers—that’s not something—that’s not—he can’t…

But he also won’t break her heart. He refuses. He won’t be the one who makes her feel that much more alone. She’s the only person he has in the world, he can’t do that to her. Especially when he so ardently wants—when he can’t stop thinking about—

Fuck.

_ Fuck _ .

At least it isn’t going to stop him from doing his job—from protecting her life. He’ll focus on that. That’s the only thing that really makes sense right now. And he certainly doesn’t want to think about what might happen if the Emperor were to ask him to… he doesn’t know. Hurt her. Betray her. Something. Anything.

Abandon her.

He remembers hearing whispers of a guard of the Emperor’s who had tried to kill him. Or had killed him, because he had come back to the tree. He wonders what had made the guard do it.

—

“Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen it,” the Emperor tells Rey the next time that he summons her for breakfast. Kylo stands in the shadows, watching them carefully, trying to stay calm. “Our spies inform me that it will not be long now before they expose themselves. You are doing well.”

“Thank you, grandfather,” Rey says quietly. 

“Be vigilant,” he tells her. “Trust no one.”

“I don’t,” she replies. “I have learned well from you.”

“Even your dragon,” he says. “All living things are fallible.”

Rey nods, and it’s a knife in his heart. He knows she has to agree, knows she has to appease her grandfather in all things, but the idea that he might be fallible, that he might let harm come to her...

“You know I didn’t mean it, right?” she whispers to him as they cross out of the forest and into the keep again.

He grunts. 

She shakes her head and lets out an amused sigh. “You’re so predictable.”

“I’m not predictable,” he grunts.

“You are. It’s what I like about you.” And suddenly her hand is in his, squeezing it and his heart stops. His body will have to continue on without it for a little while. “I know I matter to you.”

Then her hand is gone and she’s still walking as though nothing has changed at all. 

“You’re being vigilant, right?” he asks her.

“Yeah, I promise,” she says. “I just keep texting them is all. I think whatever it is they’re planning—it’ll be Saturday. They really want me to come out dancing on Saturday.”

“Then we’ll be careful on Saturday.”

She pauses and looks back at him where he’s still standing, rooted to the spot where she’d let go of his hand.

—

It is against every instinct in his body, letting Rose and Jannah pull Rey to the bathroom that night. “We have to  _ peeee _ ,” Rose slurs at him loudly. “No boys allowwwwwed.”

He stands there in the hallway, waiting for them to come out, knowing they won’t. He knows that they drugged her drink. He watched as Jannah’s hand slipped for just a second over Rey’s tequila, watched as Rey’s movements had gotten more floppy, as her eyes got more dazed—and not necessarily in a drunk way. 

And now she is on the other side of the bathroom door. Getting killed, or kidnapped, or anything.

_ How is this helping him catch them?  _ He thinks angrily as the vision of Rey with her hands and legs tied, a gag shoved down her throat fills his mind.  _ How? _

Yeah, fuck all this.

He almost knocks the door off its hinges so forcefully does he open it and sure enough, Rose and Jannah are trying to shove an unconscious Rey through the tiny bathroom window. Rose pulls out a gun and points it at him.

“Don’t try it, dragonborn,” she says and there isn’t even a hint of drunkenness to her voice now.

Rey’s legs are disappearing through the window, her feet, then nothing at all.

Kylo charges and it’s stupid, he knows it’s stupid but they are taking her, they are taking Rey he won’t let them take Rey.

A shot fires.

And he is on fire.

—

“We couldn’t just leave him, Poe.”

“You really fucking could have.”

“You weren’t  _ there _ .”

“I suppose we can use him to try and get her to comply, right? Hurt him instead of hurting her. Then hurt her if her grandfather doesn’t—”

Kylo groans.

It feels different.

His whole body—it—

It is like his muscles are burning, but not a flame burn, a muscle acid burn, an intense physical activity burn. And his groan fills his throat in a much less rumbly way. And everything is so heavy. And his pulse is so loud in his ears and it doesn’t burn his veins with that comforting dragon burn. It just throbs. Incessantly.

He opens his eyes.

The world seems darker than before. And it takes his eyes longer to adjust than it usually does.

There are three people there—Rose, Jannah, and a man.

He groans again.

“What happened to him?” the man asks.

“I shot him, and then he turned into a human.”

“What was he before?”

Kylo looks down at his hands, wrapped in rope as they are, and—

There are no scales. He tries to unfurl his wings and they are gone. He stares at Rose and horror crosses his face. “What did you do?” he snarls.

“I don’t know! I just shot you!” she says, raising her hands defensively, almost apologetically.

“Badly. You didn’t even kill him,” the man—Poe, they’d called him—says.

“He was charging me and there was fire in his mouth,” Rose snaps.

“Drop it, will you?” Jannah says. “What do we do with him?”

“Where’s Rey?” he asks. His throat is uncomfortably dry. He swallows, trying to wet it.

“That’s none of your business,” Poe says.

“Where is she?” They’d implied she was still alive, but somehow that knowledge makes him no less desperate to find her. “Please.”

“Look, I get you’re a loyal guard dog and everything but—”

“ _ WHERE! _ ” he bellows and if he’d still been, if he were—if he—

There’d have been fire. Everywhere. There’d have been his wings fanning the flames. There’d have been screams—theirs—and roars—his—and there’d be answers.

What is he now? He lets out another yell.  _ I’m supposed to keep her safe! _

“Can you give him whatever you gave her? We can’t transport him with him yelling like that.”

“I’ll do you one better,” Jannah says and something hits the back of his head and then there’s nothing.

—

He wakes in the back of a truck, his arms and legs bound. He can tell it’s a truck because of the rumble of the bottom underneath him as it drives wherever it’s taking him. Everything is dark and his eyes take a moment to adjust to it. But when they do—

“You ok?” he asks her.

Rey lets out an almost hysterical laugh. “Me? You’re the one who got  _ shot _ .”

_ And turned into a human, somehow.  _ But she doesn’t say that. There are tear streaks on her face. She’s handcuffed, her wrists on either side of some bar on the side of the truck and so she can’t get closer to him. His own hands are tied to the floor so he can’t even inch closer to her. Not that he could take her into his arms anyway like this.

He wants to hold her. He’s so afraid. He’s afraid of what he is now, afraid of what they’ll do to her, what he’ll have to see them do to her now that he can’t breathe fire, or fly them free.

“You ok?” he asks again.

She swallows. 

“I hate this,” she whispers.

“Me too. You’re not alone.”

She looks at him and there are tears in her eyes again. “Neither are you.”

—

The back of the truck opens and the light is blinding. Kylo prepares for hands, for soldiers, for guns and shouting but instead only one person climbs into the truck. In the brightness of the light, it’s hard to see who it is, but the shadow implies someone short, and female, and old from the nature of her movements. And she’s approaching—not Rey—but Kylo.

He hisses at her because he doesn’t know what else to do. 

“It’s all right,” she says gently and there’s something in him that goes still. Not an instinct he’s used to, and oh is he used to instinct. Instinct to fight, and fly, and protect his hoard, instinct to grab himself when he wakes up hard in the night. But this instinct—this is one to nuzzle. “It’s all right,” she repeats.

“Who are you?” he asks.

“My name is Leia Organa,” she says quietly. The leader of the Resistance is crouched down next to him, ignoring Palpatine’s granddaughter and telling him he’s going to be all right.

And he believes her, somehow.

He shouldn’t.

“Ben?” she asks him quietly.

And a spell breaks. Or maybe it broke the moment that Rose shot him. But it breaks again as he stares up at her.

—

“Vader, your grandfather—he tried to kill Palpatine,” his mother—his  _ mother _ —was saying. “He kidnapped you and cursed you and turned you into a beast.” They are still sitting in the back of the truck, and the doors are closed again, giving them some semblance of privacy. Rey is watching them, he knows, but he can’t look away from his mother’s face. 

“I wasn’t a beast,” Kylo says.

She gives him an odd look. “You weren’t you.”

“I was,” he says. “Now is when I’m not me.”

If she disagrees, she lets it go. “We always knew you were there,” she said. “Your father and uncle and I. But we couldn’t get near you. And the older you got, the harder it would be to find you, and we didn’t even begin to know how to break the curse.”

“What broke it?” Kylo asks her.

“I don’t—” his mother begins, but it is Rey who says, “Me,” so quietly that he almost misses it. His mother does not, though, and she turns to look at Rey. 

“You?”

“He likes ironies,” she says sadly. “He likes exploiting them. Curse the granddaughter to loneliness so that she can’t be free to betray him as the son was. Curse the traitor’s grandson so that the only thing that would break the curse would be the opposite of what his grandfather did—trying to save a life rather than end it.” 

She gives Kylo such a sad look and even though his hands are still bound, he reaches for her. It’s impossible for his mother not to notice. She looks between them and Kylo can tell she’s assessing, calculating.

“Rey,” she says at last. “We kidnapped you to try and extort your grandfather. We thought we could make him capitulate to our demands. But I wonder…” She hesitates before continuing. “Perhaps you would like to be free of him too.”

Rey doesn’t exhale her last breath. She stares at Leia blankly, and then her eyes turn to Kylo and he sees such longing there that it hurts him.  _ Go. Be free. _

“It’s always you,” he tells her quietly. “It’s only ever been you. If you go, I go.”

Rey nods. Then turns to Leia. 

And nods again.

—

When they are out of the back of the truck, when they are in a dingy motel room—just the two of them—Kylo turns to her.

“Are you playing them or is it the truth?” he asks her quietly.

She looks at him nervously. “It’s the truth,” she whispers, as though frightened her grandfather will hear her. He may. Kylo is sure that the Emperor doesn’t even begin to show the extent of his full powers to anyone. He wishes he still had wings to pull her into a safe embrace. He always felt as though his wings were impenetrable when they were wrapped around her, a shield of sorts even though the skin of them was actually quite fragile. “Is that all right?” She sounds nervous.

Kylo looks at her and it makes his heart twist, the fear in her face—that he’d leave her, that he’d choose her grandfather over her, that she’ll be alone—truly alone—surrounded by strangers who may see her as no less a pawn than the Emperor. 

As if he’d let that happen. 

As if he weren’t hers as much as he’d once done everything to convince himself she wasn’t, in fact, his

“I meant it—it’s always you. If you go, I go.” 

She sags with relief and her eyes are bright with tears. “I was scared—”

“Scared I wouldn’t choose you?” Kylo asks incredulously.

“Scared you couldn’t, more like it,” she says and her lips are trembling and she’s trying so hard not to cry. 

That’s it. He crosses the room and she’s in his arms, burying her face in his neck as she shakes. His dampens as he runs his hand up and down her back and just holds her. 

“Only you,” he promises. “It’s only ever been and only ever will be you, all right? Anything I can do to keep you safe and happy, I’ll do it. Your happiness is the plan. Always.”

He doesn’t expect her to react. He is sure that she’s overwhelmed. But she upends his expectations, the way she always has. It’s what he’s always liked about her. 

“What is happiness?” she mumbles into his neck. “I don’t think I know what it is to be happy.” 

“I don’t know,” he confesses.  _ Happiness is dreaming of you, and the way you smile at me in the sunshine. Happiness is a dream. A hope.  _ “But we’ll find out. I’ll,” he pauses. Is he brave enough to say it? 

Yes—he is. For her, he can always be brave, even as he tries to process a new body, a family he’d never even given a passing thought to, defying all the rules and orders he’d known because of Rey. 

“I’ll do everything in my power to make you happy.”

And she looks up at him, her eyes bright, and wide, and wondering. “You will, won’t you,” she says and he can hear in his voice that her mind is far away. And something shifts between them, the air they’re breathing seems sweeter, somehow. There’s a lightness in her expression he’s never seen before—or at least, never in waking.

She’s beaming up at him in wonder, and wonder melts into delight, and then into something else entirely as she stands on the tips of her toes and presses a kiss to the underside of his jaw. It’s quick and when she pulls her head away, she ducks her gaze away from his as though nervous.

His Rey—his dauntless, beautiful, brave, stubborn Rey—she doesn’t get to be nervous.

When his lips find hers, she lets out a moan that is somehow quieter than a cat and louder than a tiger’s roar. Her arms are around his neck, her lips parting so that her tongue can slip between his and there’s such a longing in every part of her, the way her body curls to arch into his, the way her tongue delves into his mouth, the way the breath coming out of her nose tickles his upper lip.

And when, at last, they break apart, her smile is brighter than the sun.

—

Their first time is nothing to write home about. They’re both too nervous, too aware that this— _ this _ —had been the destruction of her father, daring to be with someone without the Emperor’s consent. They try to lose themselves in one another, but Kylo’s body is still new to him, and for all her confidence on the dance floor, Rey’s never done this either. They kiss, and breathe, and ask  _ is this ok?  _ far too many times, and by the time that they’re both spent, Kylo somehow feels more tense than he ever has in his life.

The second time is better at least. It’s easier because he remembers the little things she’d liked, his fingers in her hair, the brushing of the undersides of her breasts. He lets himself explore her a little more, too, kisses every freckle on her increasingly freckled nose, finding pulse points in her elbows and knees and lets himself taste the spot between her legs that smells divine, smells like sunshine, and someone who’s his not because she has to be but because she wants to be.

The third time, though—well. Third time’s a charm.

The vulnerability is still there—it’s never not there, he thinks. The wonder that this is something she can have, that she’s safe and free to choose and that she chooses him. He catches glimpses of it in her eyes when she looks at him, and in the tips of her fingers when she touches him. 

But the rest? Oh, his indomitable Rey is back. She feasts on him, devours him, her lips claiming his own before moving to his neck, his chest. She nips at little moles and birthmarks she finds, sucks on the strange ridging of skin that was still new and sensitive because it no longer has scales to cover it. She straddles his ankle when she takes his dick into her mouth and even as her head bobs up and down, as her hands pump firmly at the parts of him that she can’t take in, gripping exactly the way he’d shown her, she rubs her sex along his ankle, dripping over his skin. She sighs from it—the angle or the bone perhaps putting the exact pressure she wants on her sex and all he can really do is twitch and sigh and stare at the ceiling as she does what she wants with him.

There aren’t words of love. There don’t need to be, though, somehow. Words like  _ I love you _ don’t really fit on his lips because they feel like a weak comparison to how he feels.  _ You’ve been all I’ve wanted, we’ve kept one another safe, we’ve only ever wanted this _ . What is love compared to the power of wanting her not to be his hoard because she wouldn’t want to be his hoard, and so even if it defies his every instinct, he’ll try not to think of her that way, even though she is his hoard, even if now, she’s choosing him.

It still hurts his brain.

She doesn’t really feel like his hoard anymore. That instinct disappeared with his wings and flaming heart. But she still feels so profoundly his that it takes his breath away as she licks lazily along his cock, as she hums contentedly, as she looks up at him and there’s a warmth that’s all sunshine Rey. He knows the color and size of her nipples now, he knows the taste of her cunt, he knows the expression on her face—what it really looks like—when she looks at him with love. 

And he also knows what it looks like when she gets impatient and kisses her way back up his chest, grabs him with both her hands and lines him up and there—that’s it, that’s just it, the way she looks as she slides onto him, rides him, takes him in. 

He could die happy right now. 

Except he shouldn’t, because that would make Rey sad, and he had meant it when he said her happiness was the plan. But every time she slides—hot, wet, his—up and down his length, he feels like his heart—well his heart was made for this. It was made to bear this, the way it pumps faster and faster in his chest, the way he is consumed with her, consumed by thoughts of her, this is all he’s ever been, fire and flame and Rey and holding on for her, holding on to her, holding on with her as they defy the stars together.

His hands find her hips. He needs to steady her pace or he’s going to lose himself before he’s ready to and he loves the way she looks down at him. There’s wonder and delight and hope in her eyes as she lets him guide her pace. She stretches her arms up over her head, her breasts pulling up slightly and Kylo sits up underneath her and buries his face between them, sucking at the sides of them, discoloring her skin with memories of how she makes him feel. Her hands find his head, her fingers tracing circles in his scalp as she whispers, “Be with me. Be with me,” against his temple.

There are things he could withstand. He had been able to withstand all those assholes touching Rey, thinking they could love her, living close to her but never being able to hold her the way he wanted.

It turns out he can’t quite withstand Rey telling him to be with her because he comes with a groan, his body hotter than it’s been since he’d become a man and his fingers tightening against her shoulder blades as he lets himself fall back, pulling her with him to rest on his chest. 

“Always,” he promises her as she slips off him, as she curls around his side, her hips rubbing against the side of his. He doesn’t need to be told she wants—needs—more of him, that she’s not done, but he finds it endearing that she’d keep the light friction going all the same while she waited for him to catch his breath again. He slips a hand between her legs, and finds her clit. “Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! You can find me [here!](http://linktr.ee/crossingwinter)


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